My Life, Miscellaneously in Chronological Order

     I'm not quite sure how to start this. For some reason God's name feels too precious to even type out right now. I have been waiting and waiting to know what to blog about. So many things have happened in my heart and life in the past few weeks. So many things. And not only my heart but others. God really is amazing. As I begin, I want to let you know that most of these thoughts will probably come out sporadically. And I wouldn't be surprised if this blog is majorly long, so here's a forewarning for what you are getting yourself into. :P Per usual, I will try to organize it chronologically. But if you know me...you can testify that organization in general is not really my strength, especially when I'm overly passionate about something.
     A few weeks ago I went to the Pre-Passion concert. If you dont know what passion is, take a really quick break right now and go look it up, the blog can wait! :P Now that you know what Passion is and are hopefully thinking about going I'll move on. At Pre-Passion Louie Giglio spoke via video about revival. Something at that time, I was still struggling with containing my restlessness for. That night was CRAZY.
     Louie made me realize that I was so restless because I was waiting for revival. I wanted to go out and partake in it. I was scrambling to control what was happening in my head without letting it overcome and completely change my heart. Louie said it, "Draw a circle on the ground around you and pray, right now, ask God to start a revival. Ask Him to start it right there, inside the circle, with you." And then once the revival had begun in me, I can go to the outskirts of my circle and reach people, my family, then my friends, then my school, then the world. But it HAS to start with me. I screamed at myself, HELLO!!!! Of course. So I drew an imaginary circle, and I prayed.
     The rest of the night was pure joy. We sang at the top of our lungs, we danced around like goofs, we cried, and finally, we smiled to the point where our faces hurt. I hadn't smiled like that in a long time. I could not. Stop. Smiling! And I just kept singing "You are my joy! You are my joy! You are my joy! You are my JOY!!!!!" (If you dont know that song, take another breather and look it up now) :)
     Later in the week I went to CRU where a guest speaker was there for the night. MAN was he monotonous at first. He, of course, was a professor and all I could think about was how terrible his class would be. I jotted down on a piece of paper to Caroline, "I'm not connecting at all." She responded, "We're here for a reason." Conviction smack? Yes. I wrote back..."You're right." Prayed for God to open up my ears, heart, and mind, and started listening like it was my day job. (Oh, it is my day job! :P) All the sudden he was saying everything I needed to hear. Crazy huh? He talked about trials. There are three things we need to realize about trials. First, what the trial is. Second, the condition we are in, our true condition. Third, that trials point us to the feet of Jesus where we can have a relationship and process with Him. He made the analogy, we are the clay and got is the potter. I usually use the analogy, we are the clay and God is the kiln. I think the kiln is a little more accurate to what most of our trials feel like. At this point I started becoming thankful for what I was going through. I had asked Jesus to start a revival in me. I had asked Jesus to break my heart for what breaks His. I asked Him to convict me, change me, rid me of myself and fill me with Him. Why the heck am I always surprised when He does it!? The last thing that the speaker said was, trials are the shaping of us, like the potter shapes the clay, but Jesus shapes us for a lifetime. When He is done with the scraping, the shaping, the kiln, the painting, then and only then are we put on his mantelpiece by his throne.
     The next day I left for a weekend at Rockbridge to work on Work Crew for YL. It was a JMU thing ;) The weekend was great! I worked as an AM cook and got to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to cook like 400 pieces of french toast plus more. I also got to clean the drain. :) I'm really not being sarcastic. God knows how our hearts work. And serving is what brings joy 100%. The last night was amazing. Josh Goodman, the programmer, spoke, cried. Josh, a guy from our young life, spoke, cried. Pete Hardesty, the area director, spoke, cried. All for the passion of bringing people to Jesus. Three grown men cried because of the overwhelming love they have for the Lord and for the deep passionate need for people to know Jesus. Made me cry too! I cannot explain to you what happened in my heart during that one sitting. It changed my life forever. Pete explained that there are two things that will last forever. People, and the Bible. People will either go to Heaven or Hell. For eternity. The Bible, the Word, the story of Jesus, will last forever. And the only thing that matters. The ONLY thing that MATTERS in this entire universe and world. On this world, in our lives, for the rest of time, is for people to know Jesus. That is only thing that really matters. Nothing else! Nothing. My heart flipped. And so did my life. Probably the fifth 180 its taken since summer.
     Fast forward a week to the David Crowder concert. (+ John Mike McMillan, Chris August, and Gungor) It's amazing how God uses people (aka David Crowder) to speak to the ones He loves (aka everyone). It's also amazing how just thinking about God and Jesus and Heaven can make me cry. It's amazing.
     Now we are back to the present! This week has been weird. The beginning of the week was so dry. I didn't want to talk to God. I just wanted to sit and have the Holy Spirit pray for me. But that was just me refusing to pray. God already knew what was in my heart, and what was in my heart earlier this week I didn't feel like repeating back to Him. Thursday I went to a Deep Ceremony. It was at a local church and for college students. It was charismatic. Before you make your judgements take another breather and text or call me right now to ask me about it. I will tell you this though, God, the Spirit, was almost tangible.
     Friday I walked to Walmart and back, went to Leadership for YL and got anxious, excited, and restless about being a leader next year! Then we had a spontaneous dance party at one of the guy YL houses off campus. Then a sleepover and Friends. Saturday we walked to Dollar General and picked out stuff for the Operation Christmas Shoe Boxes we got from church (thanks mama for the cash), went to the game, made costumes for the Thanksgiving Party, went to the YL Thanksgiving Party, then went to a dance party again. Today my legs almost fell off.
    Church was great! Just having the opportunity to go worship and hear about Jesus is amazing. But later today was when I read something that really impacted me. Francis Chan people.
     It is too much for this blog. <3